WhatsApp has taken an important step toward improving privacy, giving users the option of sending disappearing messages by default.

WhatsApp introduced disappearing messages last year, but the feature had to be manually enabled for each new chat. The company is now providing a way for users to enable disappearing messages by default.

The new feature was announced in a blog post.

Today we are excited to provide our users with more options to control their messages and how long they stick around, with default disappearing messages and multiple durations.

WhatsApp users will now have the option to turn on disappearing messages by default for all new chats. When enabled, all new one-on-one chats you or another person start will be set to disappear at your chosen duration, and we’ve added a new option when creating a group chat that lets you turn it on for groups you create. This new feature is optional and does not change or delete any of your existing chats.

The move is a welcome one, and significantly improves the chat platform’s privacy and security.